MichaelZullo.com

These are so much fun to go to because I’m still amazed that I’m going to a parent/teacher conference! LOL

Here’s his status…

To Learn About Self and Others:

• Seeks to remain in company of familiar adults
• Uses others facial expressions, gestures, or voices to guide own behavior
• Mirrors others expressions of feelings

To Learn About Moving:

• Begins to gain balance and to move from place to place
• Uses whole hand to grasp and drop objects

To Learn About the World:

• Explores objects using all senses
• Explores objects and notices how they react
• Watches the actions of others

To Learn About Communicating:

• Responds to simple gestures and to the intonation, pitch, and volume of simple speech
• Manipulates books as adults read aloud
• Notices pictures

Favorite Activities and Special Interests:

• He likes to be on the floor and play with the musical instruments

Situations or Experiences That Cause Distress:

• He gets uncomfortable when he is sleepy

Next Steps at the Program and at Home:

• To put him to walk more with the walker

So we’ve put off the things that Mikey’s specialist wanted us to do long enough. We have been dealing with switching over Mikey and his daddy over to my insurance to avoid putting them on COBRA since his daddy recently switched jobs and since that finally went through I made the appointments we needed.

Today we went to the hospital for his C-Spine X-Rays. Mikey was a charmer in the waiting room flirting with everyone that would give him attention. I was able to feed him his breakfast there too since we had time before they called us back. During the X-Rays he seemed to cooperate but did whine a little because he had to be held down which he does not like. They quickly got the two images that they needed and I waited to get it on disk for myself just in case it doesn’t get to the doctor by next week.

We are also heading back to PT for our eval this Saturday. I haven’t noticed him tilting at all recently so who knows what they’ll say. We are seeing our old therapist so I’m sure she’ll be happy to see that Mikey is crawling and using those arms she tried to get him to use a long time ago. I will definitely post an update after that appointment.

This week has been so fabulous. With the transition to the big kid side of the infant room and all its just been one thing after another. Today I popped down to see Mikey and he was in the tiny big kid high chair saying MaMa MaMa like he knew I was on my way to see him. When he saw me he was sooooo happy. Then we took him out of his chair and his teacher says “Michael show mommy what you can do”. So she puts him on the floor with a toy in front of him and up he goes onto his hands and knees and he starts crawling like the big boy he is. No more army crawling, he’s doing it the right way now! I was so proud of him. To top that off they were gathering all of the big kids in their little red buggy for a field trip out to the bay to see the iguanas. He looked like such a big boy strapped into his seat squealing because he was so excited since it was something new for him.

What a great way to end the work week!

Mikey has had 7 teeth for a little over a month now. For the past week he has been showing signs of teething with tilting and being cranky and not wanting to drink all of his milk from a bottle. Oh and forget puree’s he can’t stand soft foods, which is odd but whatever floats his boat.

Well I’d put orajel where I thought the new tooth was coming. Logically since he only had 3 teeth on the bottom I figured it would be tooth next to his right bottom central incisor oh no I was VERY VERY wrong. For the hell of it I decided to feel around his mouth, when he allowed me to, and I noticed on his left bottom side the gums were flattening out and there was a bump where a molar would be. Well he has finally allowed me to take an extended peek into his mouth and low and behold you can see a corner of his molar cutting through. He hasn’t been in pain for the past couple of days and I’m hoping it stays that way as the rest of the tooth works its way up. But OUCH, its gotta hurt!!

So I went down to see Mikey at 1 figuring he’d be asleep since it was nap time for the “big kids”. Well he was asleep and thankfully he was facing the other way so I quickly snapped a photo of him. Here’s the pic I got:

Then there were a few babies crying so he started to stir. I started to walk away because I didn’t want him seeing me so that he cold fall back asleep. But he spotted me and then I went to hide and he wouldn’t go back down. I then find out he had been sleeping for an hour and a half which isn’t horrible and didn’t finish his lunch because he was so tired. So they put him in his little “big kid” high chair and I was able to give him his lunch. Here’s a cute pic of him after he finished his lunch:

So as I posted before at noon I called daycare and they told me Mikey had already had his lunch and was trying to fall asleep. I ended up going down around 1:15 to pay a short visit in hopes that I would catch him sleeping. To my surprise he wasn’t in his crib, he was all by his lonesome self sleeping on a mat on the floor on the big kid side of the room. There were only 4 kids in the infant room today, probably due to the storm, and they were considering just putting him in his crib for his nap but decided to try out the mat instead and what a great decision that was. He went to sleep so fast they said. Maybe he has always wanted to sleep on the floor like the big kids do? Who knows. I’m counting down the minutes until I can run downstairs to pick him up so that I can hear all about the rest of his day, in Mikey talk of course. ;o)

What a CRAPPY day! Woke up to rain and lightning from Tropical Storm Fay that is just south of us. Of course the office was open so we had to make our trek south to get to the Port. Did our normal routine of taking Mikey upstairs, changing him, giving him his bottle and then we headed to daycare like we normally do. Got there and gave him his pancakes and off I went back to work. Today begins his transition to the big kid side of the room. I’m soooo anxious to hear how he does today. I was going to try going down at noon but since its been raining all day I figured I’d call them to see if he was awake and he had just had his lunch and was trying to go to sleep. He ate lunch without me. (

My little man is growing up to be a big kid right before my eyes.  I knew my visits would be drastically impacted by his transition since the big kids have lunch at 12 and then go down for their nap from 12:30 – 2:30 and that’s usually when *I* go down there. So I’ll need to pop in later. I might sneak down for a short visit to see him sleeping on the big boy mat on the floor instead of in his crib.

It’s amazing how seeing him even if he’s passed out asleep will make a gloomy day seem so much brighter!

What a big boy you are! Happy 10 month birthday Mikey. Just two more short months until the big number 1!!!!

So for months now Mikey will shake his head no when you say “No No No” to him. It’s rather cute actually. Well he’s been playing with saying N’s this week and a lot of it has sounded like Neh Nah No. Well finally after I said “No No No” he started shaking his head and he copied me and said “No No No”. I knew I should have taken the video camera out just in case, but didn’t think he’d do THAT. I was just hoping he’s say “No No No” not just his head too.

Last night since I was making Mac-n-cheese for dinner I figured I’d whip up some baby mac for Mikey. This time I wasn’t going for the jarred baby mac like he’s had before. This time it was the real deal. It went over sooooo well that I thought I’d post the recipe. This was actually enough for 2 servings.

1 oz Pastina
Couple of cubes of cheese (I used Cheddar and Monty Jack from the Kraft Cubes selection)
2-3 Tablespoons of whole milk

Cook the Pastina according to the directions on the box, I used a small pot since I wasn’t making much. Once its done strain it to get all the water out and put the Pastina back in the pot. On low heat mix the Pastina with the cubes of cheese. If the cubes are pretty big break them up ahead of time so that they melt faster. Once the cheese is all melted you are going to add in some milk. Start out with 1 tablespoon and increase as needed. You want to be a smooth texture like real mac n cheese is. Once you get it right serve to baby warm. Once it gets cold it’ll start to harder a bit and they probably won’t like it as much.

Whatever he didn’t eat I saved for lunch for today. I reheated it for 20 seconds in the microwave and added a tiny bit of milk again and stirred it to get it smooth like it was last night. And he liked it just like he did last night.

Hope your baby enjoys it as much as Mikey did!